Oracle's Automatic Storage Management (ASM), introduced in Oracle 10g, provides

an alternative to raw disk devices for storing Oracle-related files.

Like raw disks, ASM volumes (called diskgroups) have no filesystem and cannot be
browsed directly at the operating system level. This makes maintenance a challe
nge because you cannot use the normal commands to copy and delete files (cp and
rm in UNIX, copy and del in Windows).You can use RMAN to back up and restore ASM
files and, in 10gR2, you can use ASMCMD to view and manipulate the directory st
ructure. The DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER package in Oracle 10g is yet another way to work
with ASM.
DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER copies files on the same Oracle server or between two Oracle
servers. It uses directory objects to specify the source and destination directo
ries and, because directory objects support ASM pathnames, so does DBMS_FILE_TRA
NSFER. This makes it an easy way to move files to and from ASM storage from a re
gular filesystem.
DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER can copy any kind of file to and from regular filesystem stor
age, but it can only transfer Oracle files to and from ASM diskgroups. Datafiles
, logfiles (including archivelogs), and controlfiles can be copied, but you can'
t put a copy of your init.ora there (for example).
Suppose you use an ASM diskgroup to store archivelogs, and you need to extract s
ome of the archivelogs to send to a Data Guard standby server. Listing A shows t
wo CREATE DIRECTORY commands that define the archive directory on the ASM diskgr
oup (+DG1) on my server and a temporary directory (C:\Temp) in a filesystem.

Listing A
SQL> col name format a50
SQL> SELECT sequence#, name
2 FROM v$archived_log
3 ORDER BY sequence#;
SEQUENCE# NAME
---------- --------------------------------------------------
12 +DG1/orcl/arch/arc00012_0578762891.001
13 +DG1/orcl/arch/arc00013_0578762891.001
14 +DG1/orcl/arch/arc00014_0578762891.001
SQL> CREATE DIRECTORY archdir AS '+DG1/orcl/arch';
Directory created.
SQL> CREATE DIRECTORY tempdir AS 'C:\Temp';
Directory created.
SQL>

Listing B shows the use of DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER's COPY_FILE procedure to copy the

logs.
Listing B
set serverout on
DECLARE
v_archivedir VARCHAR2(30) := 'ARCHDIR';
v_tempdir VARCHAR2(30) := 'TEMPDIR';
v_asm_logname VARCHAR2(100);
v_win_logname VARCHAR2(100);
v_first_log_seq NUMBER := 12;
v_last_log_seq NUMBER := 14;
v_log_seq VARCHAR2(5);
CURSOR c_logs IS
SELECT name
FROM v$archived_log
WHERE sequence# BETWEEN v_first_log_seq AND v_last_log_seq
ORDER BY sequence#;
BEGIN
FOR i IN c_logs LOOP
v_asm_logname := SUBSTR(i.name, 16);
v_log_seq := SUBSTR(v_asm_logname,4,5);
v_win_logname := 'orcl_arc'||v_log_seq||'.log';
DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER.COPY_FILE(v_archivedir,
v_asm_logname,
v_tempdir,
v_win_logname);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_asm_logname||' copied to '||
v_win_logname||'.');
END LOOP;
END;
/
SQL> @copyasm_b
arc00012_0578762891.001 copied to orcl_arc00012.log.
arc00013_0578762891.001 copied to orcl_arc00013.log.
arc00014_0578762891.001 copied to orcl_arc00014.log.
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
A cursor loops through the log names, selected from the V$ARCHIVED_LOG dynamic p
erformance view. The filename portion and sequence number are extracted via SUBS
TR, and then a new filename is built. Finally, DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER is called to p
erform the copy.
You can also transfer to and from other servers using the GET_FILE and PUT_FILE
procedures in the package.